HAVN Life Sciences is a biotech company focused on psychedelic therapies.
The Vancouver-based company develops technology-focused, data-driven, and medical-based solutions.
Joining us here at the Top Line today is HAVN Life Sciences CEO, Tim Moore. Welcome back and thanks for joining us today.
TMH: Let’s start by touching on the company’s finances. The stock was briefly halted in January. Bring us up to speed, where do things stand?
TM: Well, it was unfortunate that we were halted. The CSE and IROC do a really good job of making sure that you’ve got full disclosure and that people are compliant and frankly, we were late filing our Q2 financials. We knew we were going to be late, and we knew we would be halted as a result of that but it did allow us to get that information out to shareholders so that they were able to be fully informed.
TMH: You mentioned your second quarter financial results were delayed unexpectedly, clear that up for us and tell us where the company’s balance sheet is at now.
TM: Let me start with why we were delayed. In October we went through some management changes. Our former CFO left; our accounting team turned over. All of that was part of our restructuring to reduce our burn rate and to get us in a better position to move forward. We’ve transitioned to a new accounting team that’s a fractional accounting team and there was just some catch up and work that needed to be done there and regrettably, they weren’t able to get those financials done but we’re now in good standing with the regulatory bodies. We got the financials filed, we’ve improved our balance sheet by approximately a million dollars during that period of time which is great and we’re continuing to move forward with all of the key projects that we’ve been talking about.
TMH: How has the relationship with Loblaws been so far and do you see potential for expansion of your distribution with them?
TM: To remind people, back in October we announced that we got national distribution with Loblaws in their supermarket banners. So that’s Real Atlantic Superstore, Real Canadian Superstore, Loblaws, Dominion, Zehrs, as well as the Independent Grocers. It’s 259 supermarkets across the country and that was a follow on from our initial distribution with them, which was the Fortinos stores, of which there are 23 in the Greater Toronto Area. So, we got our product in there last year and our first quarter and based on the performance there, Loblaws decided to expand us to all of their supermarkets across the country.
So, we’re in just under 300 stores with Loblaws, but of course in total that organization represents over 2,400 stores. Many of those are franchised or smaller formats but they’re ubiquitous in this country and so we see tremendous opportunity if we can continue to see good performance on our products that they’re selling and earning their place on the shelf, that we’ll be able to have that ongoing conversation to expand the footprint with Loblaws.
TMH: From a commercial standpoint, what have been your best-selling products so far this year, and are there any developments you’re looking forward to?
TM: So our top three sellers, they’re all functional mushroom products. There’s our Bacopa product, there’s our Mind Mushroom and there’s our Lion’s Mane and in that order, they’re the top three. The Bacopa is a very much a focus product. The Mind Mushroom is an immunity as well as alertness product and then the Lion’s Mane provides immunity benefits and so those three have been the best performers of our total 11 SKUs, Loblaws listed six and those three have been doing the best. So, we do see opportunity for them to not only increase the geographic footprint or the store count footprint but also to take on some of those additional SKUs and that’s very much a decision that they need to make. We have added four SKUs at Fortinos, which again was the harbinger for expanding into Loblaws and we’ll see how they perform there and if there’s an opportunity to expand.
TMH: Is there anything else we haven’t touched on right now that’s important for our viewers, and your investors to know?
TM: Well, it remains a challenging time to be a microcap company. The markets particularly with the most recent news from the banks in the United States, it’s challenging times, but we see ourselves in pretty good shape because we’ve now got this revenue to back up the business and Loblaws has really given us that cash flow to maintain operations and keep us in good stead and we just look forward to continued success in the balance of this year.
Tim, thanks for joining us at The Market Herald today and sharing your insights with our Top Line audience, and your investors.
We’ve been speaking with HAVN Life Sciences CEO, Tim Moore. The company trades on the CSE under the ticker symbol HAVN. You can also visit https://havnlife.com/ for more information.
Thanks for watching Top Line. In Vancouver, I’m Simon Druker. We’ll see you next time.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is sponsored content issued on behalf of HAVN Life Sciences, please see full disclaimer here.
